Know the West

Let's support taxpayer restoration

Thanks for your feature
on ecological restoration (-Working the Land Back to Health," HCN,
3/1/99). However, as an ardent conservationist and a small business
owner, I was annoyed by Ed Marston's introduction. "In a time of
tight public money," he writes, "restoration depends on creating
economies that can produce healthy land and profits, and creating
economies is not something environmentalists are very good at."

This analysis is deficient in at least two ways.
First of all, what "time of tight public money" is he talking
about? Every politician in Washington is crowing about a surplus.
We can debate whether this surplus is real or based on fancy
bookkeeping; nonetheless, most of our public servants want us to
believe they are raising more than they are
spending.

This is public money - your money.
Would you rather see it spent on Star Wars and corporate welfare,
or on restoring public landscapes to provide clean water, clean
air, habitat for other creatures, recreation and tourism
opportunities, etc.?

Secondly, if
environmentalists have done a poor job of "creating economies,"
well, who's done better? For generations, extractive industries
have fueled the boom-and-bust cycles that debilitate Western
communities. Subsidized ranching provides minimal employment, at
significant environmental costs, for the public money invested.
According to the Congressional Research Service, the U.S. Forest
Service logging program lost nearly $800 million last year. Is this
any way to build a sustainable economy?

A
coalition of businesses, hunters, birders, municipalities and
conservationists recently filed a lawsuit challenging the
socio-economic justification of the Forest Service logging program.
Their premise: Forests have more economic value standing than cut.
For example, the town of Oakridge, Ore., had to drill water wells
(at taxpayer expense) because their surface sources were ruined by
silt from clear-cuts. The Seventh Generation paper company signed
onto the suit to highlight how subsidized pulp logs unfairly
compete with recycled products. Locally owned firms, ranging from
outfitters to medicinal plant gatherers, have discovered -
surprise! - that industrial logging is bad for
business.

As your story points out, any forest
restoration strategy in the Southwest must involve tree thinning.
Should we offer this work to logging firms, or do we end commercial
logging and use the current subsidy to support a public works
restoration program?